Trees Sales Branching Out

The industrious folks who man New York's Christmas tree strands are a hearty if sometimes bedraggled bunch, huddling under plywood huts, sleeping in campers, relying on public bathrooms.

ENLARGE

An early Thanksgiving gave extra selling days to vendors like Mark Richard, on East 14th Street in Manhattan.
Kevin Hagen for The Wall Street Journal

This year, though, the sidewalk salespeople are catching a lucky break: An early Thanksgiving meant an extra-long sales season, translating into a bigger payoff at December's end.

Sanette Tanaka on Lunch Break looks at Christmas tree sales and the most popular conifers, by region. Photo: Getty Images.

Under a city administrative code often referred to as the "conifer clause," tree stand operators may display and sell coniferous trees on city sidewalks without a permit in December. The sellers are required only to secure the permission of owners whose properties front the sidewalk where they put their shop and maintain a pedestrian path.

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But tree stand operators say authorities look the other way if they set up shop no earlier than Thanksgiving, which fell as early as possible in the 2012 calendar—Nov. 22.

The stand operators therefore had 34 sales days before Christmas and an extra weekend, which gave them a rare break in an industry that proves trying even for hard-working crews accustomed to drifting and hustling.

"We don't know yet, but we're hoping for a big one," said Tom Gilmartin, 58 years old, a tree seller in Chelsea, referring to the last weekend before Christmas. "I've never worked a year where the weekend fell right before Christmas Eve."

For 12 years, Mr. Gilmartin and his wife, Michele, 40, drove their camper 5,500 miles from Alaska to the corner of Ninth Avenue and 22nd Street for the Yuletide season.

While relocating to New Jersey has shortened their winter commute, the Gilmartins now drive to Alaska for the warm months.

"We're seasonal. So this is our Christmas, and we'll fish salmon up in Alaska for the summer. We've had this style of life for so long it doesn't even seem like a big deal anymore," Ms. Gilmartin says.

Wearing overalls with a comfort that suggests roughing it is nothing new, they operate their stand with the help of an elf—their 9-year-old son Rory, who operates the small trees and wreathes section of the stand, and earns tips from customers, "just for being alive," says Ms. Gilmartin.

The city's tree stands are part of a $1.07 billion national Christmas tree industry. While there is no official count of tree stands on city sidewalks, 19 pay for the right to operate on Parks Department land—and those add $146,000 to city coffers.

Some hired guns manning the stands are locals, recruited through ads on Craigslist. One such ad, posted in November, read: "Must be able to start asap and work straight until Christmas eve. We work in all weather conditions, so if you hate the snow, this probably isn't the job for you."

But the ad went on to encourage those who felt they could be "a jolly asset" to apply.

Joseph Schommer, 29, responded to a different Craigslist call for workers two years ago. On his first day, he and nine co-workers unloaded 3,000 trees with no gloves, no breaks and no water. The nearest bathroom was four blocks down the street at a Dunkin' Donuts. The other option was a bottle on-site. He estimates that the lump-sum payment amounted to roughly $5 an hour.

Mr. Schommer thought he could do it better—it was the allure of a challenge that inspired him and a buddy to start their own company.

The pair enlisted Kevin Melendez, 25, to start "Tree Riders," an independent stand on Second Avenue between 10th and 11th streets. The three friends cut their early Frasier firs themselves at a family farm in southwest Virginia where horses are still used to work the land, and they offer customers the option of having their pines pedaled home on a bicycle.

They had hoped to clear their stock by Sunday, Mr. Schommer's 30th birthday, but slower sales this year left them with "ambiguous" expectations for the bloated weekend.

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